(10 years, 1 month ago)
Grand Committee
That the Grand Committee do consider the European Parliamentary Elections (Anonymous Registration) (Northern Ireland) Regulations 2014.
Relevant document: 2nd Report from the Joint Committee on Statutory Instruments
(10 years, 1 month ago)
Grand Committee
That the Grand Committee do consider the Northern Ireland Assembly (Elections) (Amendment) Order 2014.
Relevant document: 2nd Report from the Joint Committee on Statutory Instruments
(10 years, 1 month ago)
Grand Committee
That the Grand Committee do consider the Representation of the People (Northern Ireland) (Amendment) Regulations 2014.
Relevant document: 2nd Report from the Joint Committee on Statutory Instruments
(10 years, 1 month ago)
Lords ChamberMy Lords, we have all learnt some interesting things in this debate, which are no doubt well known to some of us, but certainly not to all of us. The noble Lord, Lord Prescott, raised some important and delicate legal issues on which it is much better for me to offer to write to make sure that we get it entirely accurate, rather than try to answer now.
The Government are, of course, strongly supportive of the reform of Section 13 of the Defamation Act. As has already been said, two Joint Committees have recommended that, and the Government were simply waiting for the appropriate place in a Bill going through the House on to which it might be tacked. The Government agree that Section 13 is at odds with the principle that free speech is a privilege of the House—and of Parliament—as a whole rather than of individual Members. The Government recognise that Section 13 also creates an imbalance whereby one party to proceedings can choose to use the parliamentary record but not the other.
For that reason, following the recommendations of the two Joint Committees, the Government accepted an amendment to the Deregulation Bill on Report in the House of Commons. The Deregulation Bill has had its First Reading in this House; it will have its Second Reading on 7 July, and will move through Committee and Report stages after the summer, when we return in October. It is also for that reason that I express reservations about the Bill before us today. We entirely accept the policy intent of the Bill, but we do not believe that it is necessary given that the House of Commons has already included exactly the same provision in another Bill now moving through Parliament. Provided that noble Lords do not seek to amend the Bill on this issue—I entirely agree with the noble Baroness, Lady Hayter, that that seems extremely unlikely—my noble friend Lord Lester will have secured his aim, and therefore need not detain this House further.
I understand my noble friend Lord Lester’s desire to have a contingency plan given the determination and tirelessness with which he has campaigned on this issue. However, in the light of what I have said, I hope that he can rest assured that Section 13 will be repealed when the Deregulation Bill completes its remaining parliamentary stages.
Before the Minister sits down, I will make just two points. First, does he agree that one can never take anything for granted? In other words, we cannot know at this stage what the fate of Schedule 20 will be: therefore, this is a belt and braces approach. Secondly—I think I gave notice of this—can he clarify the Sewel amendment? My Bill says that it applies to the whole of the United Kingdom. The Explanatory Notes to the Deregulation Bill go into the Sewel amendment in various ways. Can he confirm that if the Deregulation Bill goes through in its present form, because this is about parliamentary privilege it will apply to Scotland and Northern Ireland as well as to England and Wales? It is not absolutely clear from the language that that is so; obviously it should be so, but I would be grateful if my noble friend could clarify that.
My Lords, on the first point, I entirely take the noble Lord’s belt and braces approach—nothing is certain in life apart from death and taxes, and some people are quite good at getting around taxes, too.
On page 146 of the Explanatory Notes, it states very clearly:
“This repeal forms part of the law of England and Wales and Scotland”,
and Northern Ireland, and,
“will come into force at the end of the period of 2 months beginning with the day on which the Bill becomes an Act”.
I hope that that provides the reassurance that the noble Lord looks for.
I am very grateful to the Minister and to all noble Lords and noble and learned Lords who have spoken. Listening to the noble Lord, Lord Williams of Elvel, I thought that what he was saying sounded like Hilary Mantel’s Bring Up the Bodies. It certainly reminded me of a great deal that I had forgotten about those events. It would not be conducive to an entirely harmonious situation were I to add to the noble Lord’s description as I could. The noble and learned Lord, Lord Mackay, said at the time that the Government were neutral about the amendment; those were his words. All I can say is that it was a strange form of neutrality, and seemed so to me at the time. I thought that it was inappropriate for a serving senior judge to have moved the amendment—and I have said so in the past. However, having said all that, I do not think that there is any point now in doing much about what happened then.
The noble Lord, Lord McNally, has criticised me for my lack of arithmetic, because that happened not 14 years but 18 years ago—and he said that I would be hopeless in the Treasury, which is probably true.
I thank everybody. I hope that the Bill will be read a second time.
(10 years, 2 months ago)
Lords ChamberMy Lords, as I expected, this has been an excellent debate. As I came here I thought that it would be very difficult to respond to comments from noble Lords, many of whom know a huge amount more about this sector than I do. I have learnt a huge amount from the noble Lord, Lord Hodgson, in particular. I remembering him taking me through the evolution of regulation and charities law from 1601 onwards. I hope that he noted the recent remark made by an eminent lawyer, that charities law had been asinine since 1601. As we all know, charities law has evolved to cope with charities changing their view of what they should do, which remains a contested issue. I speak on behalf of the Government when I say how grateful we are for the work that the noble Lord, Lord Hodgson, has done, both in his statutory review of the Charities Act 2006 and in his contribution to the Civil Society Red Tape Taskforce. The Government hope that he will continue to play an extremely valuable role in that area.
When I went to east London to look at the work which a local Baptist minister, Mr Mawson—the noble Lord, Lord Mawson—had done, I also learnt a huge amount about local initiatives and local activity. When I first learnt about community foundations I went to Calderdale with the noble Lord, Lord Shutt, and was enormously enthused by the work which the community foundation there is doing and the way in which it is able to galvanise local philanthropy. I repeat what I said the previous time we debated this issue. Oversight of the voluntary sector is the sort of role which the House of Lords in its current composition plays very well. We ought to have regular debates on aspects of that area, because it is one on which the Commons does not focus very well. As the voluntary sector begins to deal with different challenges, we should look at how well it copes.
I start with some very broad issues about the importance of this area. We are now reaching a point where there is a degree of consensus across all the political parties in this country about the importance of striking the right balance between an open society, a free but regulated market, and a strong but limited state. We can all argue—and that is the place for democratic politics—about exactly how that balance should be struck: how large the state should be, how large a proportion of the economy it should control, and how large a proportion of national income it should take. Those are all difficult issues that we must grasp, but we all now understand that the state cannot do everything, that the welfare state cannot provide everything, and that a state that is too strong impoverishes its citizens. In an open society, we need active citizens who are not too dependent on the state.
I have done most of my politics in Huddersfield, Manchester and Bradford. I remember particularly, when I was a candidate for a central Manchester constituency, arguing with local authority officials who were quite sure that they knew what was good for the people of Hulme better than the people of Hulme did. The people of Hulme sat around and had things done to them, and played very little part in managing their own affairs. Many of us have spent time in those big inner-city estates, and know the problems that that has led to. Part of what the Government have been doing with community organisers and the National Citizen Service has been getting back into those communities the idea that people are better off if they do some things for themselves. We all now know from all sorts of psychological studies that people who feel they have some control over their own lives, and play some active part in their local community, are happier and more fulfilled in their lives.
The right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Derby talks about the end of the welfare state, but I simply do not recognise that concept. Indeed, in some ways the welfare state is expanding. Health reform in the United States is becoming embedded, and I suspect that that will not be reformed. The biggest democracy that has resisted that element of the welfare state is now embedding it. However, we recognise that the welfare state, if simply left, would expand to crowd out all other elements of public expenditure, and would then crowd out the private aspect of the economy as well.
To be maintained in its current state, the National Health Service needs an income that grows larger and larger each year. I am particularly conscious of that at the moment, having just had a new hip, and having discovered how many other people in my generation have also had a new hip. That makes me realise to what extent that sort of thing, as we all get older, is leading to the strains on the welfare state as publicly funded. I hope to make 97 at least, and the strain on the state from my state pension, my travel pass and various other things will also contribute to the problems of the welfare state.
Yes, we are all committed to the continuation of the welfare state, but we recognise that it has limits, that it is bad for us to be too dependent on the state, and that the voluntary sector alongside it has a great deal to contribute—including, of course, to the National Health Service. Just think about how much money is raised for medical research and other dimensions from the voluntary sector, and the excellent initiatives such as those that the Government have been supporting—the growth of dementia volunteers and King’s College Hospital volunteers to relieve the pressures on local hospitals. That is all part of what we must do to ensure that the welfare state continues to maintain its functions.
I follow the debates of such bodies as Policy Network and Policy Exchange, and I recognise that they are all discussing these questions. We cannot depend entirely on the state. Twenty years ago, when I was working for the University of Oxford, I was helping to raise funds for a range of international initiatives. Someone from a Dutch university said to me, “It’s actually very difficult to raise money for universities from the private sector in the Netherlands, because when you approach a possible donor he thinks, ‘If this were a good idea, the state would already have paid for it,’ so the fact that you are asking for a private donation makes people think that it’s not a very good idea.” But when we went to the Swiss, they understood. With a more limited attitude towards their state, they understood that it was a good idea to have both voluntary funding and state funding for higher education. One of the reasons why British universities are better than those in a number of other European countries is that they have both state and private funding.
We have heard a lot of comments on central state funding and local activity. I think that there is a consensus that we have become too centralised, in the UK as a whole but above all in England, and that decentralisation—both from Whitehall to local authorities and, as far as possible, from a relationship between large national charities and the state to one in which local authorities and other local bodies relate to local charities—is healthier. The noble Baroness, Lady Barker, talked about the relationship between big charities and central government. Having stronger local authorities dealing with local voluntary organisations is a desirable state of affairs. I pay tribute to the noble Baroness, Lady Eaton, who talked about the role of Near Neighbours within a number of local communities. There are many examples like that. Local giving, as the noble Lord, Lord Shutt, said, is easier to make a case for—local actions and local campaigns. In Saltaire we are just embarking on local horticulture, imitating Todmorden and others. That means growing local food in spare ground and making it available to people who do not have their own gardens. There are all sorts of local activities that we should be helping to support.
The noble Lord, Lord Kennedy, asked what had happened to the big society. My answer to him is that a great deal is happening. I regret that the Prime Minister uses it less than he did, but I am extremely happy that the Labour Party is now accepting many of the Government’s initiatives into its own campaigns. I was a sceptic about the National Citizen Service myself when it started. It was a Conservative scheme that I was not entirely convinced about—but I became a convert as soon as I visited my first National Citizen Service scheme. I am happy to see that the Labour Party now proposes that that service should be extended. That means that all parties now accept that it is a highly desirable development.
I was equally sceptical about the Conservative proposals for community organisers when they were first made. But now that I have seen community organisers working in Bradford and Leeds, I am persuaded that that is a way of helping to energise shared local action within local communities that all of us, from all parties and perspectives, should be happy to support. That is what is happening on the ground, and I hope that the noble Lord, Lord Kennedy, is as impressed with it as I have been.
We have talked about the problems of youth engagement, but there is quite a lot of encouraging evidence that young people are becoming more engaged in local volunteering. The National Citizen Service has certainly helped, and it appears that young people are keen to get engaged where they are given the opportunity to do so. I recognise that, as one or two noble Lords have said, community work placements can muddy the water, but part of the philosophy behind such placements is to give people some experience of working with others and for others, which in itself is a self-motivating experience.
There has also been much talk about elderly volunteers. We are all aware of that aspect. I have promised my wife that when I retire, in a few years’ time, I will go into voluntary service. I am very proud that when my mother finally stepped down from her last voluntary role, as chair of an old people’s home, she was herself older than a substantial number of the people living in the home. This is not an entirely new idea. The elderly fit are now very much part of those who hold voluntary action of different sorts together.
We have talked a lot about fundraising and funding, state contracting, and provision of public services. Of course, there is a problem with state funding of the voluntary sector, because public funds have to be publicly accountable. That carries with it a level of bureaucracy that does not exist in the same way with private donations. There must be accountability for public funding. The Government are, however, carrying through a number of useful experiments. There are social investment targets to fulfil, and so on, as well as social action proposals and Community First funding, which help to encourage the sector to innovate.
As I have come to terms with different elements in this sector, I worry about the parts of the voluntary sector that are over-dependent on public funding. If a voluntary organisation is dependent on the state for most of its funding, it ceases in some ways to be an entirely voluntary organisation. That seems to me a large issue for the future.
I am extremely grateful to my noble friend and shall be very brief. He said some very nice things about me and I am very grateful to him for that. I do not want to bite the hand that feeds me, but before he leaves the issue of social investment, will he give a commitment to look at the wording of “necessary and incidental” and “necessary and proportionate”? Without that change there is a real danger that this important movement may be stifled.
My Lords, I am happy to give that assurance and I will be in touch with the noble Lord later in terms of what precisely the answer is. We have asked the Law Commission to look at the content of social investment by charities within the confines of charities law, and I will come back to the noble Lord on that.
The noble Baroness, Lady Tyler, asked about the JustGiving report, to which I trust the Government will respond in good time. Payroll giving has developed a good deal. I am well aware from one or two members of my family who work in the City that payroll giving has spread across the City. It is a useful contribution from those who can afford to pay. We all also need to focus on philanthropy in our unequal society. That is the sort of thing that I hope archbishops and bishops will be saying loud and clear. When I think of those within the community I particularly recall the contribution that the Sainsbury family has made in all sorts of ways to medical research, the University of East Anglia, the National Portrait Gallery, et cetera, with the money it inherited. I regret that we have not seen from the City and the financial sector as much in the way of philanthropy from those who have been lucky and successful enough to give back to society what they have gained economically. I hope that we will hear from others on that theme.
A large number of other issues were raised. In terms of campaigning and advocacy, there should be a natural tension between society, the voluntary sector and the state. That is unavoidable. The last thing we would like is a voluntary sector that always said the state was good. I grew up in the Church of England, and it seemed to me that it was far too close to the powers that be. As a boy I would sing:
“The rich man in his castle,
The poor man at his gate”—
not something that I assume the Church of England sets as a hymn very often these days. Thankfully, Churches now see themselves as unavoidably criticising the status quo. Voluntary organisations, of course, should be doing advocacy and campaigning. I should say to the noble Lord, Lord Patten, that I am not sure that I do see a clear difference between campaigning and advocacy.
When I was doing the consultation on the Transparency of Lobbying Bill, I met the Alzheimer’s Society, which told me about its dementia campaign—an absolute classic of a campaign—to raise public awareness on an issue to which society, the state and the media had not been paying sufficient attention. The noble Baroness, Lady Pitkeathley, talked about the carers campaign that had very much the same effect. That is precisely one of the many roles that the voluntary sector should have.
However, we all understand also that there is a point at which campaigning and advocacy becomes political in a partisan way, and therefore approaches a boundary over which campaigners should not step. I know Charity Commission paper CC9 almost off by heart now. CC9 is relatively clear and therefore the challenge made by the noble Lord, Lord Finkelstein, is one that is unlikely to be offered.
I am extremely grateful to my noble friend. Is he satisfied that the Charity Commission has all the necessary and relevant powers to deal with the issues of political campaigning to which he is referring?
I am satisfied that it has all the powers that it needs. The Charity Commission is now very stretched. Its budget and therefore its staff were cut. Digitisation would help a great deal to make it easier for the Charity Commission to do its job, but the role of the Charity Commission is an issue that I know the new chairman and the new chief executive wish very much to take up with Members of both Houses of Parliament, and I encourage others to take that further.
On the question of regulation, I have been the trustee of two musical charities which dealt extensively with children, particularly primary school children. I am conscious that a certain degree of regulation is useful and necessary for charities. That is another argument that we will continue to have in this respect. On the international role of charities, the noble Earl, Lord Sandwich, touched on the problem of Greenpeace in India. It is not only a problem for India or for Greenpeace. Those of us who follow what happens in Russia, Sudan, Nigeria or Saudi Arabia know that the foreignness of some non-governmental organisations is something that those concerned with sovereignty have great concerns about. We do our utmost to support both those working for voluntary organisations and those working for civil society organisations in more authoritarian countries. I am not suggesting that India in any way is authoritarian but there are many other countries in which this becomes more difficult. That is one of the issues with which the Government are concerned and with which Foreign Office embassies are much concerned.
I am conscious that it would be impossible to cover everything in this debate. I merely want to thank the noble Baroness, Lady Scott, for introducing it, and all those who have contributed. I say yet again that this is the sort of debate that this Chamber does well. The future development of the voluntary sector is an extraordinarily important part of maintaining an open society and an open democracy. It is an issue to which this House should return regularly.
I made some remarks about the disgusting activities of Wonga and suggested that maybe the fines levied on it and other companies could be used for charitable activity in the credit union movement or the financial sector. Will he confirm that he will write to me on those matters?
I would be happy to write to the noble Lord. I should, of course, have said that the whole credit union movement, with which I know the noble Lord is much concerned, and the role of the churches in supporting the credit union movement are classic examples of how valuable our voluntary sector can be.
(10 years, 2 months ago)
Grand CommitteeMy Lords, this Question asks us to assess the human rights situation in Egypt. I have to say that it is poor, and at the moment is getting worse. We all recognise that and the severity of the situation. We also recognise, as the right reverend Prelate said, the conflict between interest and values in foreign policy. Egypt is one of the most important countries in the Arab and Muslim world. It is also an important player in the world economy because of the Suez Canal, and in regional order, because it is Israel’s neighbour and part of the key to Gaza. So we have a complex number of interests there.
I recall that when I first started studying international relations, Egypt was in those days the largest and most important player in the Arab world and the source of influence on other countries. That is less so now because the Egyptian economy is in an extremely weak position and has gone backwards sharply over the past three years. The poverty of Egypt, in contrast to the wealth of the oil-producing states, has to some extent altered the balance. We have to start by recognising that the countries which now support the Egyptian economy and are perhaps helping to rebuild it are the UAE and Saudi Arabia, which gives them much more direct influence on what is happening in Egypt than we have.
We also have to recognise that Egypt has, after all, the origins of the Muslim Brotherhood—an important Sunni player. The Muslim Brotherhood, in a sense, was one way in which to reconcile traditional Islam and aspects of modernity. As such, it is seen by a number of other Governments in the Gulf as being a threat to their rule. The Saudi Government declared the Muslim Brotherhood a terrorist organisation in March this year; that was very much because of its history within Saudi Arabia, in the sense that it is a challenge to the nature of the Gulf regimes.
Therefore, alongside the pressures that we are putting on the Egyptian Government, we also have to recognise that others have different priorities, which are not ours. Her Majesty’s Government have a close and continuing relationship with the Egyptian Government. We speak frankly to them. We have issued a number of statements about the numbers who have been imprisoned and, in particular, about the recent condemnation of the journalists and the liberal activists with whom we were in indirect contact. We have made, and continue to make, our position entirely clear to the current Egyptian Government.
Some participants in this debate have suggested that there are chinks of light. The new constitution has elements guaranteeing the rights of women. If we are to believe President Sisi, he sees his role as being to provide a gradual transition to democracy. We all know that such a transition can be extremely gradual; that is part of the problem we have to bear. The European Union has some influence. Egypt is part of the southern neighbourhood with which we work. We, and others, through, in our case, the Arab Partnership Participation Fund and a number of European Union funds, have been working with bodies in Egypt which want to promote a more open, liberal and equal society.
That is not easy under the current conditions. In the Chamber not long ago, some of us were debating whether foreign NGOs and other organisations are recognised as legitimate in other states. Egypt is as conscious of sovereignty as any other state in this regard. The Egyptian Government’s response to Secretary of State Kerry’s condemnation of the punishment of the journalists demonstrates how difficult it is to get one’s influence through.
That being said, the Government will maintain their dialogue and their strong condemnation of the direction in which Egypt is going. To be honest, we have to recognise that Egypt, like Turkey until recently, has a deep state which is the military—linked to military control of aspects of the economy, the intelligence services, the police and the judiciary. I never entirely understood what was meant by the phrase “the deep state” until I worked on the Cyprus problem many years ago. After funny articles and various bits in the press started getting published attacking me, I met somebody in Istanbul who told me how that had been arranged. There are parallels between Egypt and Turkey. They are not entirely dissimilar regimes, although Turkey is a great deal more developed than Egypt.
Moving the Egyptian regime on from the current privileged position of the military within the state apparatus and the economy is going to be extremely difficult. We have to recognise that, in doing so, we will not be pushing them in the same direction as Saudi Arabia or the Emirates. Thus the Europeans and, to an extent, the Americans will have a hard task to get their messages through. What we saw with the Arab spring in Egypt, as in a number of other countries, was the emergence for the first time of an urban middle class. There is a similar one in Tehran. Iran, after all, has all the tensions between rural elements and educated urban elements that we now see in Egypt, although, again, Iran is much more economically developed than Egypt.
There is a very long way to go in Egypt, and I have not yet touched on the treatment of minorities, the Coptic Church and other elements which we also have a great deal of concern about. We recognise that what happens in Egypt matters for the whole of the Middle East, for the Sunni dimension of the Middle East, in particular, and for the relationship between the Middle East and Europe as a whole. We therefore must maintain our dialogue and our criticism. We need to speak on the rights of minorities and the role of women, as well as the need to accept that the media must be allowed to criticise and that foreign media play a legitimate role in contributing to the national debate. All those messages, which the current Egyptian Government do not wish to hear, have to be repeated on a regular basis.
I think I have covered all the points. I accept what the noble Baroness said about mass arrests, torture, the role of the remarkably untrained and over-independent judiciary and all the problems that we see in that society. We are attempting to train a small number of Egyptian judges but that is also a very large task. The experience we have gained in helping to move the states of eastern Europe through transition shows just how difficult this can be. I recall going to Budapest in about 1995 and meeting my noble friend Lord Lester, who said: “We are having great difficulty in explaining to the judges here that they can rule against the state.” If that was the case in a country as developed as Hungary, the problems are much larger in less developed states and those with no tradition of democracy.
The right reverend Prelate said that Egypt is currently narrowing the space for democracy. Egypt has not yet been a democracy for any sustained period. As we all now understand in this country, democracy is a frail concept which we have to cherish. It is very easy to lose and very hard to build. It will take a long time to build it across the Middle East but we must work as hard as we can, through all the means and with all the allies we have to promote it. I assure him that the Government will continue to make their views clear as we continue a close, frank dialogue with the Egyptian Government.
My Lords, the noble Lord has been emphasising positive engagement and dialogue. Before he sits down, can he give us a specific assurance that the Government’s representations will include the dangers of counterproductivity and the hard-headed argument that what is happening within the penal system plays right into the hands of the extremists?
My Lords, I did not hear the Minister address my question about whether the loosening of arms licences is envisaged, in the light of the recent statement by the US Secretary of State.
I apologise. No, it is not envisaged. There are those who think it is a not entirely happy event that they should have announced that—for good security reasons about Sinai—just before the judgments on the journalists came out. We have no such intention.
(10 years, 2 months ago)
Lords Chamber
To ask Her Majesty’s Government whether they have considered setting up a United Kingdom constitutional commission to examine further devolution and decentralisation within the United Kingdom.
My Lords, since taking office the Government have established two constitutional commissions—the McKay and Silk commissions. The Government have also noted the recommendations of the Calman commission. The Government have implemented those recommendations through the Scotland Act 2012 and have implemented the recommendations of Part I of Silk’s report for the Wales Act. Ministers are considering recommendations of the McKay commission. The Government have not at present contemplated a further, broader convention.
Is the Minister aware that all these commissions caused the problem because there is growing concern about the piecemeal nature of constitutional reform in the United Kingdom and the consequent English democratic deficit? That has resulted in the setting up of an all-party group pressing the Government to look at it in a comprehensive way. Each of the three parties seems to be moving in this direction. Would it not be sensible for the Government now to announce that a constitutional commission will be set up to look at constitutional change throughout the whole of the United Kingdom in a comprehensive and coherent way, and preferably before 18 September?
My Lords, I am a veteran. I was a young academic 40 years ago when the Kilbrandon commission, which took four years, looked at the overall balance of the United Kingdom including the Crown dependencies. It is not felt at present that a commission of that length would help. It has been the tradition in this country to move piecemeal, part by part and to establish conventions. We are moving with the English question through the city deals—the noble Lord may have noticed from this morning’s announcement on the northern hub that we are moving towards decentralisation within England. So a number of things—not just with Scotland but with Wales, Northern Ireland and, at last, with England—are beginning to move.
My Lords, should not our efforts be concentrated at the moment on maintaining the unity of the United Kingdom before any further constitutional tinkering? Does my noble friend agree that if further powers are to be devolved to Administrations throughout the United Kingdom, it is a matter for the United Kingdom as a whole, not just for Scotland, Wales or Northern Ireland? In that context the noble Lord, Lord Foulkes, has a point.
My Lords, England is the most centralised industrial democracy at present. It has become more centralised over the past 40 or 50 years. That is one of the issues that remains outstanding. Graham Allen in his debate in the other place last week suggested, as chair of the Political and Constitutional Reform Committee, that all three parties should be using this last year before the election to contemplate how we approach putting the different parts of our devolved settlement together.
My Lords, does the Minister accept that whatever the outcome of the referendum in Scotland—whether it is a yes vote or no vote—the status quo is unlikely to be the final resting point of the argument? That being so, surely a piecemeal approach is not acceptable, particularly when in Scotland the Government appear to be offering taxation powers that were recommended by Silk for Wales, but which the Government have rejected for Wales. On what possible basis can there be coherent progress when that is the Government’s approach?
My Lords, Part II of the Silk report has only just been published and the Government are currently considering it. Given the amount of constitutional change and devolution over the past few years, the idea that we are in a status quo situation is not fair. We are moving and will have to move further. The question of how we move—whether we go to a UK-wide commission or, indeed, a convention, as the committee in the other place suggested—is one we all need to consider. The Government will certainly be thinking about this in the light of the September referendum, which, as the noble Lord rightly suggests, involves the future of Wales, Northern Ireland and the English regions altogether.
My Lords, does the Minister agree that it will be important to move on quickly in the event of a no vote in the Scottish referendum to deliver on the cross-party consensus for strengthening the Scottish Parliament among the three parties which do not support independence? My right honourable friend Alistair Carmichael has announced a conference on the new Scotland to meet shortly after the referendum to help bring that about. Does the Minister further agree that it will be necessary for a new Government, with a new mandate and a new Parliament after 2015, to provide a holistic review of what the refreshed union will be post-referendum? That is why cross-party support for a conference on the new union, concerning the relations between the nations and Westminster and the operation of Whitehall departments, will hopefully be important in bringing about an overall review, which will serve the strength of the United Kingdom in which we surely all have an interest.
My Lords, that is an interesting idea which we should all consider debating further. The northern parts of England have interests in common with Scotland in wanting to counter the dominance of London, which is a part of the problem as well as a huge advantage for the United Kingdom in economic terms. It is a part of the dialogue that we all need to have.
My Lords, Professor Anthony King has quite rightly described the current constitution of this country as a mess. Would not a constitutional convention help to clear up the mess by clarifying the muddle over asymmetrical devolution, by clearing up the devo-max in Scotland that dare not speak its name, by reasserting the authority of the Westminster Parliament and, above all, by at long last doing something about England and showing that it is not simply a bad football team?
We will leave the football team to one side. Constitutional conventions have, on the whole, taken place after revolutions—for example, in the United States, France and elsewhere. To go as far as a constitutional convention for the whole of the United Kingdom would be a radical and rational step. I encourage the noble Lord, as a rational radical, to pursue that. However, currently there is no public demand for it and I have not yet heard any major political party suggest it.
(10 years, 2 months ago)
Lords ChamberMy Lords, first, I congratulate my noble friend Lady Taylor and Lord Grenfell on the way in which they jointly steered this Labour Peers’ working group forward. I was delighted to be an elected member of that group—elected by my fellow Labour Peers. I am bound to say that my noble friend may have been extremely persuasive in her opening remarks today but, my goodness, she is much more persuasive when she is chairing a committee, and she ensured that we got agreement.
I was happy to support the report, although I should have liked it to go a bit further and I want to develop that in a moment. However, I want to say something about the Clegg Bill, which managed to unite in opposition to it those of us who support an elected Lords and those of us who oppose it. It was quite a political achievement to get all those people on the other side.
Furthermore, in so far as some of us believe in an elected second Chamber, as I passionately do, we believe in it because of accountability to voters. A 15-year term manages to avoid such accountability because once one is elected, one is no longer answerable. So I did not like that 15-year period. There is another argument against that 15-year period that the noble and right reverend Lord, Lord Harries, advocated, which is this: if people are going to give it 15 years of their lives, they will not be young people. After 15 years, what will they do? How will they get into a career? A 15-year term seems to be recipe for only older people. That is surely the last thing that we want to advocate at this stage. I am against the 15-year term, whether it comes through appointment or election.
The size of the House is getting unmanageable. Let us be clear about that. More people are coming in. When one looks at the figures—and given the number of people who are attending—one can see that it is extremely difficult for this place to function sensibly. If we are to adjust the membership of the Lords after every election, unless there is a way of getting rid of people, there are will be more and more people. The number will rise exponentially.
My Lords, I, too, start by congratulating my noble friends Baroness Taylor and Lord Grenfell on their co-chairmanship of the group, and indeed all members of the group, on their work. I should inform the House that I, too, was a member of the group, although I was nominated by the leader of my party. I am not altogether confident, if I were to put my name forward for election that my colleagues would have elected me, given my views on Lords reform. None the less, it was a great privilege to serve on the group and I think we have had a very good debate indeed. It may not be the last word on Lords reform, but it seems to me to set some sensible proposals on which we could make progress. I hope the Minister will be positive in responding. In fact, I hope he might invite my noble friend Lady Royall and the Convenor of the Cross Benches for a cross-party discussion on how we might take forward some of these proposals.
A number of noble Lords have said that many decent proposals have been put forward and, essentially, the Government of the day have rejected them because they have said substantive reform is round the corner and other proposals would get in the way of it. I am guilty of that as much as anyone. Like my noble friend Lord Whitty, when I was appointed in 1997 I remember telling my wife that I would be here for only three years because by then we would have had a substantive reform Bill. Here we are, many years later. Who, hand on heart, can say that substantive reform will be with us any time soon? In view of that, the argument for incremental reform becomes much more persuasive. I was grateful for the contribution made by my noble friend Lord Richard on that particular matter.
My own party is committed to democratic reform, but we also want to see progress in dealing with the issue of the ever increasing size of the House. I have no doubt that my colleagues’ report can enable us to make a great deal of progress. The noble Lord, Lord Stephen, with some late support from the noble Lord, Lord Rennard, was a lonely champion of the 2012 Bill, in his fascinating tour round Labour Party manifestos. The problem with the 2012 Bill was that it simply did not deal with the big issue of the function and powers of this House if there were to be two elected Chambers. I have consistently voted in favour of Lords reform, but I do not think it can happen without explicit agreement about the respective powers of the two Chambers and how disputes are dealt with between two elected bodies in one Parliament. Those who have argued that that can be done say that the Lords will carry on as it currently does, but we do not use all our powers because we are not elected. If we have an elected House, it is bound to use those powers up to the limit. There you reach the problem.
I do not buy the suggestion of the noble Lord, Lord Rennard, for that reason. He accepts it may not be possible to go all the way, so he would add 120 elected Members to what we currently have. The problem with that is, the moment elected Members are added to this House, the dynamic changes. My noble friend Lord Rooker is right: there is no getting away from the fact that those who want substantive reform—I count myself among them—have to be very explicit about powers and functions.
It is good that there is general consensus about the size of the House. Not everyone agrees we should come down to 450; in particular, the noble Lord, Lord Norton, and the noble Earl, Lord Caithness, made points about that. However, it seems to me that there is a general consensus that we need to reduce the size of the House over time. This is where I should like to ask the Minister whether the Government are seriously proposing to make another long list of appointments. I can hardly believe that they will do so but I ask him to confirm, with a yes or no, whether that is the Government’s intention. Also, does he accept Meg Russell’s analysis that adopting the coalition’s formula of making the membership of this House dependent on the votes cast at the previous general election will lead to an existential increase in the size of this House and to it being completely unmanageable? My noble friend Lord Lipsey pointed out some of the consequences of what we have now.
I also challenge whether this House should be a mirror image of the House of Commons. That is essentially what would happen if you had a formula basing membership on votes cast at the last election.
The noble Lord may not have noticed that the House of Commons is not entirely composed on a proportional basis because of our current electoral system. Therefore, the House of Lords would not entirely duplicate the House of Commons.
None the less, both Chambers would be elected based on the votes cast at the same election. I think that that would be a pretty odd formula on which to base two separate legislatures, and the more you examine it, the less it stands up.
My Lords, when I first heard that we were to have another five-hour debate on Lords reform, my heart sank. After the long series of debates that we had on Lords reform in 2011-12, I had a nightmare that I had been condemned to wind up a Lords debate once a week. The person sitting opposite me was rather fuzzy in my nightmare but I fear that it was probably the noble Lord, Lord Hunt, whom I was responding to on each occasion.
However, this is a constructive, useful and modest report, which makes a number of, on the whole, rather conservative proposals. I note that the noble Baroness, Lady McIntosh, said that it is a report to, and not from, the Labour Party. Yesterday, I looked at the speech that Stephen Twigg had made to the Electoral Reform Society last month. On Lords reform, he said:
“What I can say is this: Labour is committed to a democratic second-chamber. Ed Miliband has shown that he is a leader with a radical zeal—and this will be true for Lords reform”.
I think that this report is a little bit like Talleyrand’s remark, “Pas trop de zèle”.
Stephen Twigg also said in his interesting speech that one problem with the Lords as currently constructed is that more than 40% of the Peers who regularly attend the House are based in London or the south-east, compared with some 2% in the West Midlands and some 4% in Yorkshire. We all recognise that the Lords, as currently constituted, has a range of problems and that it does not, as the report says, reflect in very many ways the diversity of the United Kingdom. We also recognise, as the noble Lord, Lord Gordon, remarked, that that is partly because it is so much cheaper and more convenient if one is based in London. Therefore, there is an incentive to move to London once appointed.
I had the great advantage of having been offered a post in the London School of Economics three months before my party leader suggested that he might nominate me for the Lords. It was therefore possible to combine a career with membership of the House of Lords. The noble Lord, Lord Sewel, was appointed on the same day as me. He was vice-principal of the University of Aberdeen and found arranging his life to fit in with Lords business a little more difficult than I did.
The report states that,
“reform of the Lords is not an issue that can be tackled in isolation from other constitutional issues”.
I strongly agree with that, and a number of noble Lords said it in this debate. Before commenting on the specific proposals, I shall address some of the broader contexts of constitutional change within the United Kingdom. The other day, a number of us had a useful debate in the Moses Room on exactly that issue. I hope that I will not embarrass the noble Lord, Lord Foulkes, if I tell him that my opinion of his expertise on constitutional issues continues to rise every time I hear him speak. That will do him no good at all with his colleagues, but never mind.
A new all-party group chaired by my noble friend Lord Purvis, and the noble Lord, Lord Foulkes, is looking at the implications of devolution for the overall constitution. That is exactly the sort of thing we all need to address and will have to address after the Scottish referendum when, as we hope, the Scots vote against independence but expect further devolution, as the Silk commission promises the Welsh—and indeed, there are questions on Northern Ireland.
The English question has come up a number of times in this House. I regard the English question as partly the London question and a question for the whole of the United Kingdom. How do we counterbalance the economic, political and social dominance of London? If you do your politics in Yorkshire, you are acutely aware that the north of England loses out very heavily from the extent to which the devolved Parliaments have begun to establish their independent voice. I go to meetings inside government in which I hear the Scottish dimension, the Northern Irish dimension and the Welsh dimension, but no one mentions the Yorkshire, north-western or south-western dimensions. That is a problem which we all face and which we all have to address.
I hope that all noble Lords will have noted the Government’s various proposals on city deals and the attempts being made, starting with Manchester and following on with Leeds and others, to devolve and decentralise to the major city regions within England financial powers and powers over economic growth. If that is carried through, that would begin to resolve some parts of the English question. Furthermore, it would carry further implications for the governance of the United Kingdom. If the centralisation of England is reduced, we will need fewer departments and fewer civil servants in London. We may then perhaps need fewer Ministers in Parliament. Therefore, perhaps there would be a House of Commons that sees its job less as preparing for service in government and perhaps a little more as checking and controlling the Executive.
We are now engaged on a whole set of questions. The Fixed-term Parliaments Act also has implications. There have been some rather interesting reports from parliamentary committees and from the Institute for Government on how we might use the last year of government to prepare for the next Session. It could be along the lines already adopted on national security strategy where we have agreed—the previous Labour Government set this out—that each new Government should define a national security strategy on the basis of work conducted in the last year of the previous Parliament.
The Institute for Government’s report suggests that in the last year of a Parliament, we should not rush through great masses of additional legislation, as I recall the noble Lord, Lord Hunt, demanding that we do, but that we should discuss some of the dilemmas that whoever is elected will have to face—for example, the rising costs of the National Health Service and how it is funded and some of the other huge questions that will face any Government—and look therefore at a scrutinising role.
Public disengagement was mentioned in the report and by the noble Baroness, Lady Taylor, in her opening speech, as well as by the noble Lord, Lord Phillips. When I read the Hansard Society’s recent Audit of Political Engagement I was shocked that only 24% of 18 to 25 year-olds think that politics has any relevance to them.
The noble Lord is describing a constitutional process that clearly will be lengthy. The agenda he has given to the Constitution Committee is long. It will take a lot of examination and discussion. There will be a lot of evidence and thinking. Does he really think that House of Lords reform should wait until all that is done?
I have in my notes that I agree with the noble Lord, Lord Richard, that further progress in Lords reform does not have to wait for the conclusions of any constitutional convention. However, I would just make the point that we are moving into a situation where various dimensions of British politics are changing, and we need to discuss how they relate to each other.
Public engagement very much concerns us. The decline in the reputation of the House of Commons should also concern us. I love listening to the noble Lord, Lord Rooker. He is a romantic for the House of Commons as it should be, and he was one of the best House of Commons men that we had. I fear that the new generation does not produce as many House of Commons men who are as good as he was.
We have the decline of the two-party system and of parties as such. All political parties now are small compared with where we were some 20 years ago. It is quite possible that the outcome of this coming election, as has been suggested, will not be a two or three-party system but a four or five-party system. With the Northern Irish and Scottish parties, there are already multiple parties in the House of Commons. We could have an awkward situation after the next election in which Labour emerges with the most seats and the Conservatives emerge with the most votes, and no two parties alone would be able to form a majority. That is getting into very uncharted territory as to how we would then proceed. I read the New Statesman and listen to Labour people talking about a Labour mandate and how Labour could form a minority Government with a clear mandate. A mandate on, say, 33% of a 60% turnout is not exactly clear.
The case for a commission or convention is out there. There was an excellent report by the House of Commons Political and Constitutional Reform Committee last year which suggested that the Government have no view on this issue at present. However, personally and as a Minister, this is a question that we ought to be debating in the last year of this Parliament. I welcome what the noble Lord, Lord Foulkes, and others are doing. It is one that we all need to consider because we need to look at how all of this runs together.
Recommendation 1 of this proposal is that we need to think about a constitutional commission or convention. There is not time within the next three months or even nine months to define exactly what we want, but it is precisely the sort of thing to which we might return in future debates between now and the election.
On Lords reform, we have been here for a long time. The noble Lord, Lord Richard, after all, chaired the Joint Committee and the noble and right reverend Lord, Lord Harries, reminded us that he was on the Wakeham commission. The Government remain committed to comprehensive reform, as indeed does the Labour Party officially. The noble Lord, Lord Stephen, remarked that the 2012 Bill, criticised sharply from the Labour Benches, closely followed Jack Straw’s White Paper.
The Byles/Steel Act has now introduced some useful interim reforms, and if we accept the proposals in this report as interim and not intended to avoid more comprehensive reform, there are a number of useful and constructive proposals for the interim, some of which are familiar and some of which are relatively new. Quite a number of them can be agreed by this House without requiring further legislation through the normal procedures and usual channels. We are of course open to further discussion on that. On the proposals in the report—
Since the Minister has been good enough to acknowledge that these proposals could be brought forward and agreed by the House without the need for legislation, would he be prepared to say whether the Government would support such a move?
The House has a structure of committees that regularly discuss House procedures. I am not able to give any commitment. We have already discussed within this Parliament the question of the role of the Lord Speaker, for example, and the House decided at that point that it did not wish to move further. It is unlikely between now and the next election that major changes will be agreed and made, but it is certainly quite appropriate that further discussions should continue.
On the question of the size of the House, the figure of 450 Members suggested in this report was in the Government’s Bill. In the long run, we might also have a smaller House of Commons if more power is devolved to the regions and the nations. Indeed, the Conservative proposals that fell saw a House of Commons of 600 rather than 650. How to move from here to there is of course the most difficult issue. Do we go for an age limit or for a time limit—or, as the noble Lord, Lord Norton of Louth, suggested, a post-election weeding out within each group, which would be a wonderful series of bloodlettings within each of the two groups?
A member of the Supreme Court talked to me some months ago about the statutory age of senility. It is a wonderful concept which, for judges, is slowly being reduced from 75 to 70. The suggestion is made here for the Lords’ statutory age of senility to be 80. I realised the last time we debated this that I will hit 25 years of service in this House within a couple of months of reaching the age of 80—and that, clearly, is the point at which I should do what Lord Grenfell did so gracefully and retire. We should all accept that we cannot move from where we are to where we would like to be without a number of us retiring. The suggestion that I think I got from the noble Lord, Lord Cormack, that those of us who are here already should somehow be exempt from the changes, is not possible.
The reason I will not give any commitment about future lists, although I am not aware of any list at the present, is that we need to keep renewing and refreshing the House. As the noble Lord, Lord Gordon of Strathblane, said, experience and expertise go stale. When I joined the House, it had an average age of 67. It now has an average age of 70—I have just passed it. It has 139 Members over the age of 80 and only 131 under 60. That House is a little difficult to defend.
Does the Minister not accept that most people think that the major motive of Governments in having extra lists is that they will have a net increase in their number here. The idea that it is motivated by renewal of the House is not how the dark arts of 10 Downing Street operate.
My Lords, I am not an expert on the dark arts of Downing Street—perhaps the noble Lord is. I simply stress that the question of age balance is important, and the idea of a House that stops recruiting new Members and simply grows older and older relatively gracefully is not one that we would accept or recognise.
I am grateful to the Minister. He rather dismissed the suggestion of the noble Lord, Lord Norton, but does it not cope with the problem of topping up after the election? He has not addressed that.
It is one way of addressing the question of topping up after the election. We also have to grasp the question of retirement. It was intended, when the retirement proposals came in, that a larger number of Peers would take the option of retirement and follow the excellent example of Lord Grenfell in that respect, but that has not actually transpired so far.
There were a number of recommendations in the report about the appointments process. I note that the appointments process will remain centralised and largely agreed by party leaders, although that is itself a question. The Bill that the Government put forward proposed to make the House of Lords Appointments Commission a statutory commission and, in any comprehensive reform, that would happen. The question of political balance is one of the most difficult ones. I agree with the noble Lord, Lord Foulkes, that if UKIP establishes itself as a significant party in British politics, it would of course be appropriate to have a number of UKIP Members in this House. He might have wished to add that given the level of attendance of the current UKIP Members, both here and in the European Parliament, we might not notice the difference. We already have a Green Member of the Lords, which recognises that British politics is shifting. That is also part of what is appropriate to reflect the changing political balance.
The need to reflect diversity across the UK is a tremendous problem, which election on a regional basis would resolve, as of course would indirect election. I am struck by the number of Peers who raised the question of indirect election in this debate, as it has not received very much attention until recently. The noble Lords, Lord Foulkes and Lord Trimble, the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Derby and other noble Lords mentioned it. The noble Lord, Lord Lipsey, talked about it having an occupational or functional basis—a sort of guild socialist approach. The Cross Benches, after all, are well organised: the academies, in particular the medics, always put forward their members. Incidentally, when it comes to lobbies, I have to say to right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Derby that the biggest lobby in this House is the academic lobby—I hope he has noticed that I used to be part of it myself.
As to working Peers, part of the reason that attendance has risen in recent years is because one is asked, before one comes in, whether one is prepared to work hard. However, those of us who were appointed when we still needed to earn our pensions would like to go on working until we have finished earning them, so the Government do not intend to produce a high bar of the sort that is proposed here. It is a matter of judgment the extent to which Members should be full-time or part-time but, again, if we want Members under the age of 60 who still have children to bring up and careers to finish, we have to consider how much we insist on their attending all the time.
The House can decide to end the wearing of robes. I have much sympathy with the noble Lord, Lord Dubs, that it would be a little more radical to suggest that we might end the use of titles, but that would be a more deliberative step.
Do we need a referendum on Lords reform? The Government’s view is that, since each of the major parties had it in their manifesto last time, it was a clear consensual commitment and a referendum is therefore not necessary. A number of procedural reforms were proposed in the report which, as I have already said—
To be entirely fair, would my noble friend acknowledge that the Labour Party did have a commitment to a referendum in their manifesto?
I have to admit that I do not recall whether the party had a commitment to a referendum on Lords reform. If it did, that is fine.
I will wind this multifaceted debate up as quickly as I can. The House of Lords has changed a great deal over the past 20 years. Certainly, since I came in, in 1996, we have become a much more effective revising Chamber and a much busier Chamber. We have become the area through which the lobbies outside know that they can get things. Figures were quoted about the number of government defeats, although my figures do not entirely agree with those of the noble Lord, Lord Hunt, and we might perhaps exchange ideas outside the Chamber. As a Minister taking Bills through, I am conscious that we are always saying to Commons Ministers, “You won’t get that through the Lords unless …”. As we all know, a great deal of what happens in the Lords is about bargaining and about the Government bringing back proposals to meet criticisms that have been made.
Let us treat this as a final-year-of-Parliament debate. There is not time for legislation before the general election but ideas such as those produced can feed into the thinking of the next Government—whoever they may be—and perhaps even build a consensus across the parties on the way forward.
The Minister has not addressed directly the suggestion put forward by my noble friend Lord Hunt that the Leader of the House might get together with the Leader of the Opposition and the Convenor of the Cross Benches to discuss the way forward. That seems a very sensible suggestion and it would be helpful if the Minister could indicate assent to that.
My Lords, I am sure that the Leader of the House would be very happy to meet, as he regularly does, the leaders of the other groups in the House, and that this could be part of an informal, or perhaps a more formal, conversation.
I end by simply reminding the House—in particular the noble Lord, Lord Richard, whom I remember laughing as I said it—that in answer to a rather sharp question some time ago on why the Church of England had not got around to appointing women bishops, I suggested that the Church of England might well appoint its first woman bishop before we achieved the next significant stage of House of Lords reform. I think it is quite possible that we shall have half a Bench of women bishops here before we achieve the next stage of House of Lords reform, but let us keep going and hope to achieve it soon.
(10 years, 2 months ago)
Lords Chamber
That the draft regulations laid before the House on 6 May be approved.
Relevant document: 1st Report from the Joint Committee on Statutory Instruments. Considered in Grand Committee on Monday 16 June.
(10 years, 2 months ago)
Grand Committee
That the Grand Committee do consider the Representation of the People (Supply of Information) Regulations 2014.
Relevant document: 1st Report from the Joint Committee on Statutory Instruments
My Lords, this is another of a long series of statutory instruments as we move from household electoral registration to individual registration. I emphasise that throughout this process our overriding aim is to make sure that as many people as possible are included on the register by as many different groups as possible.
I am happy to tell noble Lords that the implementation of individual electoral registration started successfully on 10 June in England and Wales and will start as planned in Scotland in September. For the first time ever, people can apply online to register to vote; and all 348 English and Welsh local authorities are connected to the IER digital service. Work continues and we are on track to connect Scottish authorities for the September start in Scotland. I am told that in the first five days, by last Friday, some 10,000 had registered online to vote. For the first week, that seems to be a good start. I am sure that the Committee will be pleased that this draft instrument is before it today.
During discussions with political parties to outline plans for the implementation of IER, political parties asked that at the end of the 2014 canvass they be given a specific new list of those electors on the register who have been carried forward and those who are not yet confirmed or registered under IER. I again remind noble Lords that we hope to reach some 70% to 75% confirmation through data sharing. We are now at between 80% and 85%—80% with national data sharing and 85% with local data sharing—so we are doing better than we initially thought, although we of course want to make sure that as many as we humanly can reach are included in the new list.
The full electoral register, which is available to certain people and organisations, such as political parties, will remain as it is now. It will not indicate whether an entry is as a result of a person making a new IER application, having been confirmed or being carried forward—hence the need for these regulations. They will allow registered political parties, or a person nominated by them, to request IER-related information about which entries on the electoral register are IER entries and therefore by implication which ones are not. Such applications can be made once, from 1 January to 27 February 2015 in England and Wales, and from 2 March to 10 April 2015 in Scotland. Electors who have an anonymous entry, a declaration of local connection, a service declaration or an overseas elector’s declaration will not be included in this information, as generally they do not live where they are registered. Anonymous electors are also excluded, for security reasons.
My Lords, I have only a very few comments to make on these regulations. As they stand, we support them because they will allow political parties to assist in promoting IER. One general point that I make every time that I stand at the Dispatch Box in the main Chamber is my concern about the people who are not registered to vote—at least 6 million people. Nothing I see coming from the Government ever deals with that. The Minister gave a figure of 85%, up from 75%. Is that 85% of the people who are presently registered, so that even more than 6 million people will not be registered? I want to hear more from the Government about what they will do about those people, because I do not see much for them at all.
I do not share the optimism expressed by the noble Lord, Lord Tyler, about how it is all going so well. The situation has certainly improved but I am also very well aware that there were some serious problems at the start. I know that from my membership of the Electoral Commission and elsewhere, so things have improved. Whatever Government are in power after next year will have to think very carefully about how to introduce this. If it is not perfectly right, we will have to extend the period to allow people to come on to the register, because it is really important that we allow our citizens to get registered properly. If there is a risk of more people being left out, it is not good practice.
Could the Minister also tell us a little more about the thinking of the Electoral Commission on how we are getting on with this process? I am very pleased that the Government have involved political parties, as they are crucial to getting this right, but I would like to know a bit more about the attitude of the Electoral Commission to the role of political parties.
My Lords, I thank the noble Lord for his comments, but I am not sure that I can say with confidence what the attitude of the Electoral Commission is to political parties. They play a very obvious and important part in all of this. I am informed that a minor political party is something like the rate payers’ association in a local authority, the south Somerset independents, or whatever. Anything else that is nationwide is a national political party. Political parties have a very important role to play in democracy. One thing that I deeply regret about the current state of British democracy is that the membership of all major political parties has fallen. That worries all of us, and we all wish to turn it back.
We recognise that there are a number of people who are not on the register, and the Electoral Commission’s research demonstrates that the strongest reason for that is that people want nothing to do with politics and not much to do with the state if they can avoid it—apart from receiving benefits in a number of instances. We have a severe problem of political alienation. When I saw the latest audit of political engagement produced by the Hansard Society, which has only 24% of citizens between the ages of 18 and 25 thinking that politics has any useful connection with their own lives, that is a real problem for all of us. It suggests that we have to work particularly hard at getting young people to re-engage with politics.
Is not one of the reasons—I emphasise only one of the reasons—is that young people in particular see politics as somehow divorced from the trends and the movement of technology in our country? That is why they have switched off from it.
That is one of the reasons why we hope that online voting will make it more attractive to them. I also think there is a case for encouraging more activity by all parties and by all Members of both Houses of Parliament, on a cross-party basis, to make sure that as we approach the next election young people are re-energised to take part in politics because they are, on the whole, switched off. We have a very large problem here, but there are a number of things that we can do about it. I have no doubt that the noble Lord, Lord Maxton, will be going out to many schools across his patch to energise them. I am told that the pick-up among 16 year-olds in schools in Scotland has been good and that registration is much higher than expected. That is partly because something is coming up which immediately involves them.
On ID cards, I look forward to many continuing conversations with the noble Lord, Lord Maxton. We had a Question this afternoon on digital information, digital sharing and digital privacy. The Government intend to publish a White Paper before the end of this year with clauses for a draft Bill on data sharing and data privacy. There are some very large issues here which all of us who remember the ID cards debate are scarred by. The intention of the White Paper will be precisely to try to float a more informed debate about the trade-offs between privacy and data sharing and how we address that. We have to change the legislation in this area because different departments have different legal frameworks for the collection, use and sharing of information. That is therefore a question to which we will return.
In response to the noble Lord, Lord Tyler, the transition timetable does allow for the decision on whether to carry on or to delay has to be taken by the incoming Government and Parliament. These are all failsafes to make sure that we have the maximum amount of confidence by all concerned in the transition to individual electoral registration. I hope I have managed to answer all the questions.
I have become more and more committed to a successful transition. It was something that the previous Government set out on. We recognise that there are bound to be a number of problems, but so far the transition has gone much better than some of us were initially confident about, but nevertheless we have some way to go. I again flag the problems of making sure that attainers—the rising 18 year-olds—are fully on the register. We will be returning with further instruments as we go forward just to make sure that we utilise every single possibility to maximise registration.
We seem to be raising the same points again and again. One day I would like the Minister to say from the Dispatch Box that the Government are determined to have fewer people not registered under IER than were not registered before so we are going to bring in the AEA and council leaders and work with them to make sure that it happens because with all the investment and changes, if we end up with 7 million or 8 million people not registered to vote, that would be terrible. We must get to a situation where we have fewer people not registered to vote. While some people may not want to be registered, I do not believe for a moment that all of those 6 million people out there are saying that they do not want to be on the register. I think it is about how we engage with people at local authority level, at the government level and at all levels, and that includes the political parties. I hope that when the Minister brings the instruments to us over the next few weeks and months, he will be able to give us some good news on the lines that I have outlined.
I had hoped that I was bringing good news. Of course political parties have a significant contribution to make to this. We know who the vulnerable groups are. They are young people, people who move regularly, people in private rented accommodation and people who are out of a job. They are the groups who are least likely to be registered. People like me who have been living in the same house for a long time are almost always on the register. We have to concentrate on the vulnerable groups as well as we can. I am happy to say that evidence from the National Citizen Service courses—something which our Conservative colleagues in government are enormously enthusiastically about, but I must admit I was a little sceptical at the outset—appears to show that the 80,000 15, 16 and 17 year-olds who have taken part in NCS courses are much more enthused because they think they know how to participate in local communities and therefore also how to register to vote. It is a range of activities of that sort that we all have to be engaged in. I stress again that the Government cannot do it all and that civil society has to help. The Government have already provided some £4.2 million to various civil society groups for this effort. We all need to work together. I very much hope—as I know the noble Lord, Lord Kennedy, does—that that the outcome is that some of those 6 million people who we are missing will register in the transition and that we will gain rather than lose as we make that transition.